Steven Stamkos left the Tampa Bay Lightning for the Nashville Predators in 2024, but his real estate ties to Florida are not going anywhere. In September 2025, Stamkos and his wife Sandra paid $7.38 million for a waterfront lot on Davis Islands, the small island community south of downtown Tampa, Florida, that has quietly become one of the city’s most concentrated pockets of professional athlete money.
It is the third time Stamkos has bought property on the island in under a decade. This time, there is no house waiting for him. The lot at 42 Ladoga Avenue came with a century-old Tudor mansion attached to it. That mansion is gone now, and the story of how it disappeared says as much about Florida’s luxury market as the purchase price does.
Table of Contents
- Property Overview: 42 Ladoga Avenue
- The Vanished 1928 Tudor Estate
- Stamkos’s Davis Islands Real Estate History
- Davis Islands: Tampa’s Athlete Enclave
- What Land Costs on Davis Islands Now
- FAQ
Property Overview: 42 Ladoga Avenue
Stamkos closed on the property on September 19, 2025, paying $7.38 million for roughly an acre of waterfront land at 42 Ladoga Avenue. The lot sits on one of Davis Islands’ most prestigious streets, with direct water access to Tampa Bay and the Gulf beyond.
There was no move-in-ready home included in the sale. A structure on the site had already been demolished following storm damage from the 2024 hurricane season, leaving Stamkos with a cleared waterfront parcel rather than a finished mansion. No permits for new construction had been filed publicly as of this writing, so what Stamkos ultimately builds on the site remains an open question.
The Vanished 1928 Tudor Estate
The home that used to sit on this lot was not an ordinary teardown. Built in 1928, the 9,038-square-foot Tudor estate had seven bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, an entertainment lounge, a wine cellar, two executive offices, and a boat house with a 55-foot Neptune lift rated for 80,000 pounds. The property carried 464 feet of water frontage across 1.45 acres, the most waterfront footage to hit the Davis Islands market in decades.
The estate was listed in 2023 for $23.9 million, marketed as the largest waterfront residence on the island. The listing agents pitched three paths for a buyer: keep the historic Tudor as is, renovate it, or clear the site and split it into two or three buildable lots. The home never sold at that price. Then the 2024 hurricane season hit Tampa Bay hard, and the storm damage that followed made the decision for whoever ended up owning it. The Tudor came down, and the land went back on the market as a lot.
Stamkos’s Davis Islands Real Estate History
This is not Stamkos’s first trip through the Davis Islands market, and the pattern is worth tracing. In 2017, he bought a lot on the island for $3.85 million and built a 6-bedroom, 7.5-bathroom, 8,516-square-foot home at 78 Martinique Avenue, completed in 2018.
He sold that home off-market in August 2021 for $16 million, a $12 million gain on the build. A month later, he bought again, closing on a five-bedroom, 5,665-square-foot waterfront home at 74 Bahama Circle for $8.35 million. That property, built in 2017, came with a rooftop lookout over Hillsborough Bay and downtown Tampa, two detached garages, and a private dock on a canal.
The Ladoga Avenue purchase makes three Davis Islands transactions in eight years. Each one has moved him toward larger lots and more water frontage, and each purchase has come with a plan to build rather than simply buy and occupy.
Davis Islands: Tampa’s Athlete Enclave
Davis Islands is a series of manmade islands built in the 1920s, connected to downtown Tampa by two causeway bridges. Nearly every street on the island ends at water, and the community has drawn an unusually concentrated group of professional athletes as residents. Derek Jeter’s seven-bedroom waterfront home on the island sold for a record $22 million. Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, who also owns a $150 million compound on Indian Creek Island in Miami, has owned property on Davis Islands as well. Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman, former NFL player Brad Culpepper, and Yankees legend Tino Martinez round out the island’s athlete roster.
Part of the appeal is practical. Florida has no state income tax, a meaningful consideration for athletes on multi-year, multi-million-dollar contracts. Part of it is simply proximity: Davis Islands sits three minutes from downtown Tampa but feels like a small town, with a walkable village center of restaurants and shops at its core. For a full breakdown of what drives value across the city’s priciest addresses, see our guide to Davis Islands and Tampa’s other top neighborhoods.
What Land Costs on Davis Islands Now
Davis Islands carries a median sale price around $1.45 million as of 2026, with a price per square foot near $604, among the highest of any Tampa neighborhood. Those figures reflect the broader market, not the bayfront and canal-front lots that draw the highest bids. A cleared, buildable waterfront parcel like the one Stamkos bought sits well above that median simply for the land and the water access.
Waterfront construction on the island also comes with real costs beyond the purchase price. Flood insurance in Davis Islands’ high-risk flood zones can run $5,000 to $15,000 or more annually depending on elevation and construction type, and any new build has to clear the City of Tampa’s waterfront permitting process before a single piling goes into the ground. For a buyer with Stamkos’s history on the island, those costs are evidently part of the plan rather than a deterrent.
FAQ
How much did Steven Stamkos pay for his Davis Islands property?
Stamkos and his wife Sandra paid $7.38 million for the waterfront lot at 42 Ladoga Avenue in September 2025.
Is there a house on Steven Stamkos’s new Davis Islands lot?
No. The 1928 Tudor mansion that previously stood on the property was demolished following storm damage from the 2024 hurricane season. Stamkos bought a cleared waterfront parcel, not a finished home.
What was the original home on 42 Ladoga Avenue worth?
The 9,038-square-foot Tudor estate was listed for $23.9 million in 2023, marketed as the largest waterfront residence to hit the Davis Islands market in decades, with 464 feet of water frontage.
Has Steven Stamkos owned property on Davis Islands before?
Yes. He built a home on the island in 2018, sold it in 2021 for $16 million, then bought a second Davis Islands home the same year for $8.35 million. The Ladoga Avenue lot is his third purchase on the island since 2017.
Who else lives on Davis Islands?
Davis Islands has attracted a cluster of professional athletes and executives, including Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman, former NFL player Brad Culpepper, and former Yankees player Tino Martinez.
What does land cost on Davis Islands?
The neighborhood’s median sale price runs around $1.45 million with a price per square foot near $604. Waterfront and canal-front lots trade well above that median given the limited supply of buildable parcels on the island.
Stamkos’s move is less a mansion story than a land story: a hockey star with a proven track record of building on Davis Islands adding a third, larger parcel to that record. What goes up next at 42 Ladoga Avenue will say a lot about where his Tampa ties stand for the next decade.
